


Reaching Greatness

by FandomAmbassador



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: AlwaysFnatic, Angst, Fluff, Fnatic, Gen, Just Friendship, League of Legends - Freeform, Post 2017 EU Summer Split Playoffs, Rekkles Figuring Things Out, Rekkles POV, Rekkles is sad but things work out, Team Bonding, Team Family, Team Feels, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, eSports, no relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 18:32:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12138540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomAmbassador/pseuds/FandomAmbassador
Summary: It’s been a long time since the thought crossed my mind, but suddenly I’m thinking about leaving. Just packing up and going. Maybe to another team. Maybe to leave this crazy, beautiful world of esports behind.Things aren't looking good for Fnatic after their loss in the semifinals. Rekkles figuring things out ft. the Fnatic family.





	Reaching Greatness

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Fnatic lost 3-1 to Misfits in the Quarterfinals. I wrote this mostly to let out my disappointment and sadness after their loss. Legitimately, I named my document 'dumb sad fnatic'. No worries, though, there is a happy ending!

I’ve found that there are four stages of handling a loss. I’m a veteran of this now; one of the old pros, so I should know it well enough by now. It feels weird to say that, considering I was always the youngest, yet here I am now, young enough, but with an emotional conscience of someone far older. 

The four stages of loss are pretty straightforward. The first stage is this numbness that overcomes your body. You sit in your chair and stare at the computer screen emblazoned with the words ‘DEFEAT’ and wonder if it will change if you just keep staring. This stage is all denial. 

You won’t feel any sadness or anger. Just a cold, blurry film over your eyes and this mantra in your head that insists it was all a practical joke and the next day you will wake up champions once again.

Spoiler alert, it doesn’t happen. This is real life. You don’t wake up with your dreams come true. You can’t go back in time and give yourself a second chance. All there will be is the truth, no matter how hard it is. 

The first stage, I can accept just fine. It gives me the extra time before everything comes crashing down. It gives me the extra time to shake our opponents’ hands and tell them ‘Good game’ without them seeing the tears in your eyes.

The defeat is humiliating enough. 

The second stage is when reality sinks in. When all the emotions comes crashing down upon you with no warning. It might hit a few minutes after the first stage, or a few days. When it does, it’s all blind anger. 

You might think it would be the sadness hitting you, but it’s not. The second stage is pure, unadulterated anger. 

It’s when angry tears burn at your eyes and your throat aches to just scream at the ceiling until your voice gives out and you can’t scream anymore. Your body hurts from the liquid fire and adrenaline that runs through your veins and you want to tear at your skin, to remove the itching fury. 

You don’t even know what you’re angry at. Are you angry at losing? At your team? At the opposite team? At yourself? 

It doesn’t even matter. 

All you can do is let the wildfire take over your mind and burn everything to ashes. 

This is when the third stage comes in. 

Oh, the third stage, the worst one of them all. The third stage is when the fire finally flickers out and you fall to the ground, an empty husk. 

Your throat will hurt from yelling. Your eyes will hurt from crying. Your entire body will feel limp and useless.

In this stage, you finally run out of energy. There will be nothing left and everything will feel so, so empty. All you feel is an infinite sadness that aches in the hollow of your chest. 

You will want to cry, but you can’t. All there is left to do is to curl up in a ball on the floor and let everything sink in.

So it’s over. You lost. 

I lost. 

I can’t go back. 

It’s been a long run, hasn’t it? I don’t think I can face my team again, quite honestly. Can I go back to them again? After all this? 

It’s been a long time since the thought crossed my mind, but suddenly I’m thinking about leaving. Just packing up and going. Maybe to another team. Maybe to leave this crazy, beautiful world of esports behind. Maybe I’ll finally fulfill my dream of being a football star. 

I’m not in control of my body and I suddenly find myself moving. I’m out of my room and walking to the gaming area where all of our chairs are set up.

I see our jerseys pinned to the wall, our names in stark white across the back. I see the flag with the fnatic logo set up above the monitors. 

It’s all so surreal and I barely hear myself as words spill from my mouth.

 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,”

 

They weren’t paying attention before, steadfastly concentrated on their screens. It’s not that uncommon for all of them to be playing together while I’m up in my room. They know I need my alone time and my space. 

Four sets of eyes swing towards me. 

 

“Do what?” 

 

Of course it’s Jesiz. Out of all of them, he never took my shit. The rest would put up with me so nicely. Soaz, my old friend. Broxah, the gentle giant. And young Caps who looked up towards all of us. 

But Jesiz was the realist here. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and I admired him for that. 

 

“This team. Playing.” I say and the words sound disembodied to my own ears. Is this really happening? Am I telling my team that I’m quitting?

 

Everyone is wide eyes and shocked faces.

 

“Martin...what?” Paul says softly and I see the hurt on his face. 

 

“I’m sorry,” I say, as if it means anything to them. This is the greatest betrayal of them all. Leaving my team with no notice, just because we lost. Just because I can’t handle it anymore. 

 

“You are telling us that you’re leaving this team?” Jesse says bluntly.

 

And there’s nothing for me to deny. That is absolutely what I’m doing.

 

“Yes.”

 

And now it’s out there. Everyone stares at me and suddenly I’m back in control of my body and I desperately wish I can snatch the words out of the air and put them back in my mind where they should have stayed. 

There’s nothing left for me to do or say, so I turn around to leave the room. 

There’s a scraping sound as a chair is pushed back and I feel a small body thump against me, wrapping skinny arms around my stomach. 

 

“Martin... _ please _ …” Caps whispers, his face buried against my back. 

 

Everything hurts so much and there’s a strange feeling tugging at my chest. I can’t quite explain what it is. It’s not the cold emptiness or not quite the sadness either. 

I gently pull the gangly arms away and turn to face him. 

Suddenly, I’m looking at a reflection of myself all those years ago. Wide, confused eyes filled with hurt and betrayal. Just a young boy who's been let down by his friends--his family--year after year. It’s the same look I had every time someone left me and Fnatic fell apart, somehow leaving me alone to deal with it time after time again. 

Every time the team burned down, I was left standing, a brittle echo of what I once was. 

I realized the feeling in my chest was guilt. I could never knowingly do to my team what happened to me all those years. I would never put them in the position I had to face.

Looking at Caps, I realized that there was a fourth stage to loss. 

It was the stage where you changed because of what you had faced. Where you became stronger and better because you had made it through the hard part. The fourth stage of loss was when you came back fighting and stronger than ever. 

So instead of pushing Caps away, I pulled him back, returning the hug. 

And this time, his slender frame supported me, holding me up as I leaned on him and buried my face into his shoulder. 

 

“It’ll be okay Martin. We can make it,” Rasmus said softly, gently. It broke my heart to hear his young voice still so full of hope and optimism. “We’ll get through this.”

 

And I shook my head, letting the tears that I had held back for so long, finally flow. These tears weren’t like the raging storms or the vicious, hot burning in your eyes, but more of a calm rainfall in the summer, the rains that finally let loose after weeks of drought. 

All I wanted was to make this work. I just wanted to make my team work and hold them together, take them to worlds. I wanted to make them proud and to show fnatic that I was the star that I was once destined to be. 

Rasmus kept patting my back and shushing me, comforting me with the best of his youthful, innocent knowledge. 

And then suddenly Soaz was there, putting an arm around me and Caps, his reassuring solidity grounding the both of us. Paul, always Paul there, keeping me tethered to reality, bringing me back. 

 

“We’re good, okay, Martin? It’s going to be okay.” He said and I tried to breath actually, tried not to choke on my tears. Paul’s presence was comforting as always, surrounding us in his familiar soft, woodsy scent, almost like pine needles and fresh soap. 

 

I realized that I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because of the kindness my team showed me. The kindness that my  _ family _ showed me, even when I was at my lowest. 

A gentle baritone voice joined the mix, Broxah joining us, and then Jesiz too, all of us standing there, comforting me and Caps too. Any other time, it might have been awkward, but it was too real. Too serious. 

It was just us. Just a bunch of kids who played video games for a living, comforting each other. Holding each other up. 

This was fnatic. This was my team that I knew I could never leave. This was the team I would always come back too, no matter what happened. 

 

“I’m sorry…” I managed, wiping furiously at my eyes. I hated crying in front of people. I hated showing my emotions. Somehow, it was okay this time. 

 

“It’s okay. We all feel doubt sometime. It’s okay to not want to continue.” Jesiz said. There was no anger or upset in his voice. He understood and I was so grateful. My support put a hand on my back, just letting it rest there, comforting. 

 

“I do...I want to continue. This is...my life. I wouldn’t want anything else…”

 

“Is it the team? It’s fine if you want to leave. Sometimes you need to get away.”

 

I think about the time I went to Alliance because I needed to get away. It wasn’t right. It felt wrong to be anywhere but Fnatic. I knew I could never be under any other roof but Fnatic. I could never wear any other colors but black and orange. 

 

“No...it’s just...me.”

 

There. I said it. 

It was always me. Doubt, hate, anger. It was always towards myself. 

My own worst enemy. My downfall.

The kryptonite to my superman. 

It was always my own mind that held me back, that made me this way. 

 

“Martin, you will always have a home here. We will always welcome you back if you need to take a break,” Soaz said. “You’re our brother. You’re never alone, okay?” 

 

And just like that, I was gone again, trying by best not to fall apart completely. Some resemblance of cohesion. 

I don’t deserve this. 

I shouldn’t have this. 

_ No. _

I can get through this. 

 

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” 

 

The five of us could do it. With my brothers by my side, I could do it. 

 

“I will take you guys to the top.” I promised, not even listening to myself. 

 

“We’ll be right beside you,” Jesse reassured gently. 

 

“My family always said, ‘The summit is relative’,” Mads said. “Someone’s summit may be higher than ours, but it doesn’t mean we didn’t work just as hard or that we are less deserving. I am proud of us.” 

 

I nodded. He was right. They all were right. 

 

“Thank you...all of you.”

 

It was going to be alright. We could do this, together. I could keep going.

Keep moving. 

We’re okay. We’re all okay. 

 

_ 26 days later: _

 

In the end, we were okay. We were enough.

I stood my ground, held my head up high. I didn’t leave or abandon my team. We came back ten times better and took the series. I think I’ll always stand by my words that it is possible to go from the top, to the bottom, all the way to the top again. 

So meet me at the summit. 

We’re going to Worlds.  

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this before Fnatic won the Regional Qualifiers, so I was shocked in the post game interview to hear that Rekkles actually was thinking about leaving the team if they didn't make it to Worlds. My own ideas coming a little bit too true for my liking there! I was so so happy when they won that though, and I'm really proud of them. Also happy 21st to my husband rekkles tomorrow feelsgoodman!


End file.
